


behind the red brocade the heart is drowning

by theinvisibledisaster



Series: It's a Love Story After All [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Speculation, Clarke Griffin & John Murphy Friendship, Murphy Being an Asshole, POV John Murphy (The 100), Post 6x05, canonverse, he's going through a lot, in which john deals with talking to the villain using clarke's face, it's a tricky thing to navigate, this fic may as well be called 'internally screaming'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 10:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19018396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinvisibledisaster/pseuds/theinvisibledisaster
Summary: “How long?” He asked suddenly, disrupting the silence they’d been sitting in since he returned to his seat at the bar.“Hmm?” She didn’t even look up from her drink, swilling it around with a kind of nonchalance Clarke had never possessed.“How long has she been dead?” He made sure his voice didn’t waver on the last word. He couldn’t let her know just how affected he was, or she might think he would go back on their deal.Or --- Murphy and Josphine!Clarke start working together and Murphy navigates his feelings while trying to make her think he's on her side.





	behind the red brocade the heart is drowning

**Author's Note:**

> I'M FULLY BACK ON MY BULLSHIT YOU GUYS!
> 
> Here's a Murphy POV of the Josephine!Clarke situation, because I love my boy and I'm hoping the news of Clarke's death is gonna shake him out of the bitter funk he's been in since the start of season 6. 
> 
> The title comes from the poem You Are Jeff by Richard Siken again, because the poem is interesting and I love it, and a lot of the stuff in it is weirdly relevant to this season, despite the full poem being a bizarre and otherworldly story.

_That’s not Clarke._

He could see it now, in the way she tilted her head and tweaked her lips.

_That’s not Clarke._

Her voice was higher too, less weighted.

_That’s not Clarke._

The same phrase had been winding its way around his heart since the moment Josephine had revealed herself to him.

“How long?” He asked suddenly, disrupting the silence they’d been sitting in since he returned to his seat at the bar.

“Hmm?” She didn’t even look up from her drink, swilling it around with a kind of nonchalance Clarke had never possessed.

“How long has she been dead?” He made sure his voice didn’t waver on the last word. He couldn’t let her know just how affected he was, or she might think he would go back on their deal.

“Oh, days,” she hummed, like it was nothing.

“Liar.”

She glanced up then, eyes flaring with something like amusement. “Excuse me?”

“Liar. The last time I saw Clarke was just over two days ago, and she was _definitely_ still Clarke. So how long?”

An eyebrow raised at him, a smile flickered across her lips, and then, “Since the party. Cillian tried to kidnap her after their little hook-up, and my father’s guards found them. She was paralysed, so he took the opportunity.”

He swallowed. “Paralysed. But she could still–”

“Feel it? Yep. She could hear everything, knew everything that was going on, but she couldn’t stop it. And Dad lectures _me_ on consent, I mean, _really._ ” She rolled her eyes with fond exasperation and Murphy wanted to throw up. “Is that going to be a problem for you, John?”

He shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

“Good. So you’ll help.” It wasn’t a question.

“Sure. But I’m warning you now, this isn’t going to be easy. And with Bellamy it’s gonna be practically impossible–”

“–don’t worry about that, he’s dealt with.”

His heart stopped. “What do you mean, ‘dealt with’?”

“He was too observant. He’s known I wasn’t Clarke for a while, but when he confronted me, I subdued him. He’s in captivity at the moment; I can’t trust him not to do something stupid.”

His heart started again as he hid a breath of relief. _Not dead. Thank god._

_But **she** is._

He tried to shake the bitter voice away, but it lingered.

_What was the last thing you said to her, John? Do you even remember?_

He clenched his fist next to him, where Cl- Josephine couldn’t see, trying to get his temper back under control. “What about when everybody else gets back and they don’t know where Bellamy is – what are we supposed to tell them?”

“We’ll figure it out,” she waved a hand, finishing off her drink, “but right now, the night is young and I want to have some _fun_. Come to my room in the morning, we’ll discuss it then.”

She got to her feet and drifted from the bar, taking that guard with her, and finally, Murphy was alone with his thoughts. He honestly couldn’t decide which was worse.

_She’s dead and the last time you spoke to her, you were mocking her for having royal blood. You spend so much time trying to convince the people you love that you hate them so that you don’t have anything to lose. Idiot. Now you’ve lost her anyway, and she died thinking you didn’t care. She died alone._

“Barkeep,” he tapped the table and another drink was brought his way. The voice in his head didn’t get any quieter, even when the rum burned its way down his throat.

_Little John Murphy who pushes everyone away and still loses._

He tapped the table again, throwing the new drink away even quicker than the last.

_Now you’re sitting here wallowing in self-pity, and you don’t even deserve that._

When he pushed up from his seat, the room only spun a little, but it made it harder to walk in a straight line as he edged back towards the door and his bed. He was trying not to picture Clarke’s last moments, hoping desperately that the alcohol would kick in before he reached the mattress so he wasn’t stuck awake and thinking of her all night. He just wanted to curl up and sleep. He wanted to wipe the pain and loss and panic and guilt away, just for a few hours. Just for long enough to pull himself together the next morning.

Instead, the comfortable buzz behind his eyes turned vicious the second he lay down. The room started spinning and every time he closed his eyes he kept seeing her face when she called him John. He couldn’t stop thinking about how it didn’t look quite right, because there was no sadness behind it. He wondered when he’d decided that the hurt in Clarke’s eyes was how she should always look, and when he’d stopped caring that it never went away.

_You liked that she was so miserable._

He squeezed his eyes shut, begging for sleep.

_It was vindicating, blaming her for getting shot, rather that Octavia or McCreary or the shooter himself._

His fingers scrunched against the bedsheets.

_That’s why you kept poking at her; you liked seeing how much it hurt. Like a child throwing stones at a stray dog._

“Shut up.” He muttered to himself in the darkness, teeth gritted against the tears that threatened to overtake him.

_And now she’s gone. Just like you always wanted, right John?_

“Shut UP.” He said louder, trying to drown the voice out.

_You have to look her in the eyes and pretend it isn’t killing you that they don’t belong to Clarke anymore. You think you can handle that? You can’t. You’re pathetic, John._

He threw the covers off and leapt to his feet, grabbing for the nearest thing, some kind of bat that he’d seen the children playing with earlier. He swung it, smashing the lamp on his bedside table, but it wasn’t enough.

He threw the bat at the wall, knocking a frame from it and marking the paint.

He kicked whatever was closest and relished in it as it hit the ground.

He punched the doorframe so hard it rattled.

His hands hurt and he knew there'd be bruises tomorrow but he didn't care.

He wanted to kill something.

_Like you wanted to kill Clarke, up until the moment you found out she was dead?_

He kicked a hole through one of the wardrobe doors and he didn't even register the pain in his foot, only that it was throbbing over the voice in his head.

He tore apart his room viciously, breaking everything he got his hands on, kicking and punching and fighting against the pain and panic in his chest until he was too tired to keep fighting.

Then, and only then, did he collapse into unconsciousness, feeling the weight of his feelings even as the lightness of sleep dragged him away.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

“Morning John,” Josephine said as she entered, paint brush in hand and music in a language Murphy didn’t recognise playing in the background.

“If you really want to fool the others, you should probably start by calling me Murphy. The only person who calls me John is Emori.” He said, casually flopping onto a nearby lounge.

She smirked. “I know. I worked that out after I said it the first time. You should have seen all your faces.”

“I think they were more shocked that Clarke agreed with me than you using my name, but sure.” He quipped, and she laughed airily.

_That’s not Clarke._

He hated her.

_She doesn’t laugh like that. You’ve heard her laugh. She appreciated your sense of humour, so much so that she told her child you were funny. Remember that? Remember how quickly you abandoned her after she decided to save that child over you?_

He hated himself too.

“So you and Clarke didn’t agree often?” She asked, curious.

“Actually, we’re quite similar, Clarke and I. Were,” he corrected himself, “ _were_ similar. Fiercely independent, witty, self-loathing types, y’know?”

Josephine smirked. That woman had never had a moment of self-hated or self-doubt in her life. “Oh of course. And how am I supposed to act with the others?”

“Raven hates you at the moment,” he shrugged, picking up a piece of round fruit from the table beside him and throwing it in the air. He kept that up, throwing and catching, throwing and catching, as he talked; trying to distract himself from who he was talking to. “She blames you for what happened on Earth. She’s too busy hating you to notice any kind of change. Echo doesn’t know you well enough to care. Miller will notice, and so will Emori, but I can reassure both of them. You just have to get by. Act _just enough_ like her that they buy it.”

“Okay, so what did she act like?”

“Serious. Clarke was serious, all the time, constantly weighed down by the decisions she had to make, being in charge. The sacrifices… she lost a lot of people she loved.”

“Yeah, yeah, tortured soul, blah de blah,” Josephine said dismissively, waving her hand, “what did she _talk_ like? What did she _do?”_

Murphy bit down his fury and threw the ball up once more, catching it in the other hand.

He didn’t look at her.

“She was left-handed. Spent a lot of time thinking, so if you need time to stall, just look frustrated and pensive. Looked at Bellamy like he hung the moon. Pretty isolated. She loves Madi, so you’re gonna need to act like an attentive mother–”

“–gross–”

“–if you’re trying to get Abby onside, you’ll probably need to find a way to help her with Kane; she’s pretty preoccupied with that right now. Jackson will probably help you as long as you’re keeping Abby sane. Clarke and Miller have known each other the longest, longer than even me or Raven, so you’ll need to be careful around him.”

“They close?”

“Yeah, but not in the normal way. They just have a deep respect for each other, know each other really well. Neither of them are openly emotional or affectionate people, so don’t worry about pretending you want to be around everyone or anything. In fact, do your best to look as uncomfortable in large groups of people as possible. Clarke knew that most of us were pretty dismissive of her lately, so she never really looked comfortable around us.”

“Perfect. And you’ll stick close,” she asked, and he could feel his eyes on her, feel the layer of suggestiveness in her gaze, “so that you can step in if they start getting suspicious?”

He caught the fruit a final time and returned it to the bowl, sitting up. “Sure, as long as you’re telling the truth about making me immortal.”

“Of course.” She grinned. “I have to go check on Bellamy, do you mind meeting the others first – it’ll probably look a little odd if the two of us turn up together.”

Murphy bit back his response, just jerking his head once in acquiescence. She beamed and practically floated past him, dropping a kiss to his cheek as she left.

_That’s not Clarke._

He wanted to kill her.

_Do you think you can? If she has her eyes, do you really think you can do it?_

He swallowed, steeling himself, and left the room.

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

 

He strode towards the bar, aiming to get some kind of alcohol in his system before he had to deal with Josephine again, but as he reached the bottom of the steps, he ran directly into the group returning from their trip.

He schooled his expression, but Emori noticed, even as she leaned forward to envelop him in a hug. He fell into it gladly, trying to find some ounce of comfort in her arms and coming up short.

“You okay?” She whispered.

He pulled back, plastering his usual wolfish grin across his cheeks. “I will be. How was it?”

“Complicated,” Emori said solemnly.

“Well,” he started, looking over her shoulder to invite everyone, “I say we all go get some lunch and you can tell me all about it. Clarke’s coming too, she’s got an idea.”

“Great,” Raven muttered bitterly, folding her arms.

he glanced at her, taking in the way her eyes at darkened just at the mention of Clarke's name, at the way she was deliberately taking her time as she limped behind them.

Her behaving like this really wasn’t gonna work – if the brief amount of time he spent with Josephine was anything to go by, she wasn’t going to stand by and let Raven treat her like crap, which meant she might snap and say something revealing. So really, there was only one option, and it was the one Murphy hated most.

He sighed.

Everyone else hustled towards a table at the back, but Murphy caught her elbow. She frowned at him and he jerked his head towards the bar.

“You and I need to have a little talk.”

 

* * *

* * *

* * *

 

 

After he told Raven everything, he felt a little less burdened, but not by much, especially as he watched the disbelief, rejection and then eventual acceptance cross her features.

She sat next to him at the bar and stared at the wall. “Clarke’s… dead?”

He didn’t say anything, just tapped the wood and waited for his drink to arrive.

“She can’t be dead, Murphy, she _can’t_ , she’s…” He could hear the way her voice wavered slightly. “It’s Clarke. She can’t _die,_ not like this.”

He stared into the amber liquid in his glass and dimly registered the sound of her breathing hitching as she started to cry quietly.

He felt nothing.

“The last thing I told her was that she was worse than Octavia. I accused her of not caring. I…” Raven was starting to spiral, and if she did that, they were never going to be able to convince Josephine that they were on her side.

He sighed and turned to look at her, and he knew he was playing dirty, but he had to make her understand just how screwed they were. So he said the cruellest thing he could: the truth.

“I think the worst part is… she would have chosen this. If she’d had a choice, she still would have chosen this, if she thought it would save everyone,” Murphy whispered, and he could see tears slipping down Raven’s cheeks. “She would have sacrificed herself for us, _again,_ even when all we’ve done is treat her like she’s nothing. Less than nothing. Because that’s who she was.”

“Stop it.” Raven snapped.

“What? It’s the truth.”

“Stop talking about her like she isn’t here anymore,” she said angrily.

He shrugged, lifting the whiskey to his lips. “She isn’t.”

Raven smacked the glass from his hand and it flew across the room, shattering on the floor.

When he turned to her in surprise, he could see the rage etched into her features, and everything she was trying to hide behind it; all the pain and regret. He saw it because he knew that must be how he looked too. He knew he should probably comfort her, make her feel better, but he liked that she felt just as guilty as him – liked that he wasn’t alone in hell.

“Pull it together,” was all he said. “When Josephine gets back, you’re gonna need to pretend to be okay with this. It’s the only way we’re getting out of here alive. It's the only way _Bellamy_ is getting out of this alive.”

“I _can’t,_ Murphy,” she sniffed.

“Try.” He said, cold, unforgiving. “You saw what they did to someone who wanted to stay; what do you think they’ll do to us for trying to leave? And they changed the passcodes for the shield so there’s no way we’re getting out without a plan. You’re supposed to be good at those.”

She muffled what sounded like a sob behind her palm. “If Clarke was here–”

“If she was here, we’d already have a plan and be halfway out by now, yeah. I don’t care. You’re the genius, right? So act like it.”

He flexed his hand, feeling the bruises over his knuckles pinch and revelling in the pain.

When they returned to the group, Josephine was already there, smiling up at them.

_That’s not Clarke._

“Where have you two been? You’re missing all the fun!” She popped a piece of fruit in her mouth and Murphy didn’t miss the confused glances that Emori and Miller were shooting her. She was really going to have to work on that if she wanted to keep the rest of them in the dark.

He rolled his eyes and sat down, gesturing at Raven. “We were just talking about Shaw. About how you ran into that nuclear field to try and save him even though you didn’t know if it would kill you too, just based on a hunch.”

He made sure to punctuate the statement with a hard look at Raven as she sat down across from him, and she looked down at the floor, a single tear slipping onto her hand.

Josephine just about managed to hide her surprise at Clarke’s actions before she shrugged it off. “Any of you would have done the same.”

“No.” Murphy snapped. “We wouldn’t. Which is what I was reminding Raven of. It’s not your fault her boyfriend died, no matter how much she wishes it was.”

“Murphy!” Echo said, shocked, but he folded his arms and glared around at them all.

“What’s the problem, Echo? Missing your own boyfriend? Or are you just upset that he loved Clarke more than he’ll ever love you?”

“John!” Emori’s expression was almost horrified.

Echo pursed her lips but she didn’t say anything.

Raven looked up, her expression almost defiant. “It’s okay. He’s clearly in the middle of one of his self-loathing kicks, hoping we’ll fight back so he has an excuse to abandon us again. But… he’s right. I was being unfair earlier, Clarke.”

Josephine blinked.

“Oh, uh… that’s okay.” She said lamely, and Murphy threw his gaze to the ceiling, trying not to visibly shake his head at her.

Raven squinted too, cataloguing the differences in her behaviour, but she sat back and nodded, cool as a cucumber when she said, “Good. So what’s the plan?”

Everyone turned to look at not-Clarke and she glanced at Murphy, just once, waiting for his acknowledgement that they were fooling the others, for an assurance that they were still on the same side of this. He nodded, a quick jerk of his chin, and she set to work explaining her idea to the others, conveniently skipping over all the important details.

“Where’s Bellamy?” Emori interrupted.

Josephine smiled, and Murphy could see the menacing note behind her eyes and he wanted her as far away from his girlfriend as possible. She shrugged. “He’s gone to speak to Russell – if he can get on his good side, we can really pull this off.”

“He doesn’t need to know about the plan?” Echo asked, eyebrows raised.

Josephine raised just one in response, tilting her head and leaning forward in a way that was so much like Clarke it made Murphy want to cry. “You say that like he doesn’t already know. We’ve had plenty of time to talk since your little day-trip, Echo.”

And then she went right back to pointing out locations on the map in front of them, even as Echo fumed silently across from her.

Murphy took a breath.

He only had to pretend for a little while longer; not long before he could stop pretending that the villain wearing Clarke’s face didn’t make him want to throw up and cry and break things. He shoved a hand in his pocket with faux nonchalance, wrapping his fist around the knife he kept there.

_Not long now._

**Author's Note:**

> Hiiiiii I'm sorry for ending it there, but sometimes a little mystique is good for the soul. Also this is a oneshot and I was dangerously close to making it VERY long, so I needed to stop myself somewhere. 
> 
> See, *self-restraint*, I do have SOME. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you liked it!!! Comments feed my immortal soul.


End file.
